brandon-sanderson on S Anand

Books in 2025

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 07:21:27 +0000

I read 51 books in 2025 (about the same as in 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.)

With a difference: I used AI to read 44 of them in the last week of the year.

Mind blowing

The Ants by Bert Hölldobler. Finally, after 20 years of wanting to read it. It lives up to the hype.
Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5) by Brandon Sanderson. The only fiction I’ve taken notes for. (About 500 points.)

Life changing (or at least, perspective changing)

The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eger
Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman
How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V.S. Ramachandran
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

Interesting

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman
Lux (Texas Reckoners, #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric for business success by Josh Seiden
Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes by Morgan Housel
Small Wins Every Day: 100 Powerful Ways to Transform Your Life and Health by Luke Coutinho
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery by Jason Fung
The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
The Diabetes Code: Prevent and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Naturally by Jason Fung
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Popular Science) by Richard Dawkins
The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England (Secret Projects, #2) by Brandon Sanderson
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson
The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen Jay Gould
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human by V.S. Ramachandran
Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

Worth skipping

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger
Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don’t Have To by David Sinclair
Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine by Robert H. Lustig
Price of the Modi Years by Aakar Patel
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan
The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race by Daniel Z. Lieberman
The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss by Jason Fung
The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Elizabeth Blackburn

Re-reading

Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) by Brandon Sanderson
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1) by Brandon Sanderson
Elantris (Elantris, #1) by Brandon Sanderson

Here’s the list on GoodReads, sorted by read date.

Books in 2024

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 09:32:58 +0000

I read 51 new books in 2024 (about the same as in 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020.) But slightly differently.

I only read Manga this year.

Fullmetal Alchemist (Vol 12 - 27). What started off as a childishly illustrated children’s book evolved into a complex, gripping plot.
Attack on Titan (Vol 1 - 34). I read it while I watched the TV Series (reading first, then watching). It started explosively and the pace never let up. I had to take breaks just to breathe and calm my nerves. The sheer imagination and subtlety is brilliant.

It’s hard to decide which is better—the manga (book) or the anime (TV). The TV series translates the book faithfully in plot and in spirit. It helped that I read each chapter first, allowing me to imagine it, and then watch it, which told me what all I missed in the book. I absolutely would not have understood the manga without watching the anime.

This apart, I only read Brandon Sanderson’s books. Or rather, re-read. All of them, actually 🙂.

Though I enjoyed manga thoroughly, it may not be for everyone because:

Firstly, books are not for everyone. Comics even more so. A lot of people feel they’re … childish. That takes some effort to overcome.
Manga can be gut wrenching. Nerve racking. Mind bending. You can’t treat them as light reading, like Sanderson, Archer, or Asimov. Read if you have the stomach for To Kill a Mockingbird, A Clockwork Orange, or Catch-22.

We visited Japan this summer and it beautifully complemented this reading experience. I could visualize every scene against the backdrops. I finished Attack on Titan on 4 Jun, just as we reached Japan. I planned to read nothing more for the rest of the year. Nothing could beat the experience.

But in Dec 2024, Wind and Truth was released. I am now half-way through perhaps the only book that can match my manga experience this year.

Comments

My Year in 2024 - S Anand 31 Dec 2024 3:08 pm (pingback): […] Reading only Manga […]
Saransh Saini 17 Feb 2025 12:30 pm: Hi sir, just another AoT fan here. This was my very first anime and unfortunately, it set my bar so high that I couldn’t enjoy other genres for a long time 😂. Since you are an LLM Psychologist, what better way to have fun than training two LLM models, one on the Psychology of Eren and another on Reiner/Armin, and letting them debate the ending of AoT and its future consequences? Honestly, I wasn’t satisfied with the ending and I assume this debate would drive out a better conclusion than the original one. Moreover, I would love to work with you on this project.

Books in 2020

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 03:56:14 +0000

My Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge target is 50 books. I’m at 45/50, with little hope of getting to 50. (I managed 25/24 in 2019.)

The 10 non-fiction books I read (most useful first) are below.

The Lean Startup by Eric Reis.
The principle of Build - Measure - Learn is useful everywhere in life too, not just in startups.
Never Split The Difference by Chriss Voss.
Shares principle-driven strategies to convince people.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution by McChesney, Covey & Huling.
Teaches how to build execution rigor in an organization. A bit long at the end, but the first section is excellent.
Sprint by Jake Knapp.
A detailed step-by-step guide to running product development sprints that you can follow blindly.
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams.
Dilbert’s author shares his strategies for life. Very readable, intelligent, and slightly provocative, but always interesting.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.
Written as a story (like The Goal). Talks about the 5 problems in teams and how to overcome them.
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle.
Explains the elements of strong cultures - belongingness, shared vulnerability, and shared purpose.
Data-Driven Storytelling by Nathalie Henry Riche et al.
Shares the latest points of view on telling data stories. My team and I read these chapters as a group.
Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek.
Inspiring when I read it, but I don’t remember what it said.
Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Shares tactics to focus. Practical and useful.

I also started, by haven’t finished these four:

Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown
The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams
Stories at Work by Indranil Chakraborty

I read these 25 works of fiction – mostly by Brandon Sanderson (my current favorite author) and Brent Weeks.

Lightbringer (Books 1-5) by Brent Weeks.
In a world where color is woven as magic, the most powerful man is caught in politics. This series had enough twists and turns to keep me hooked till the end.
Skyward (Books 1-2) by Brandon Sanderson.
An outcast girl on an outcast planet becomes a fighter pilot with an alien spaceship. I love the way this is developing.
The Wheel of Time (Books 1-6) by Robert Jordan.
I picked it up again mainly because Brandon Sanderson wrote the last 3 books. It was great up to book 4 but has started dragging.
Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians (Books 1-4) by Brandon Sanderson.
The author lies to you. Literally. And tells you that he will, in almost every other paragraph. Great book for kids to laugh over.
Night Angel (Books 1-3) by Brent Weeks.
An assassin in a story that spans centuries of the history of magic.
Legion (Books 1-3) by Brandon Sanderson.
A detective who has multiple split-personalities in him – that help him solve cases.
Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson.
What if you could create a snapshot of the world, enter it, interact with it, and solve crimes?
The Art of Letting Go: Poetry for the Seekers by Sanhita Baruah.
It’s my first poetry book. (I hate poetry.) I took this up to see if I could survive it, and get a fresh perspective. I survived.

… and these 10 comic books/series.

At the moment, I’m at 45 books, with little hope of completing 5 more this month unless I pick up comics. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do 😉

Comments

Kalpana Behara 5 Dec 2020 6:10 pm: I am so glad you are still writing. I stumbled upon your site some 15 odd years ago and read your Illayaraja articles. They were very technical for me to understand but I remember completely being mesmerized by the technicalities. I come back every few years to read those articles and listen to the songs you reference. I did that again today and realized you continue to blog! This is one of my favorite blogs on Internet. Thanks for sharing.
Deepan Chithambaranadhan 6 Jun 2021 1:32 pm: Please also read the Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman ;if you havenot read. Very happy to See your updated website it was down for a few weeks some time ago. I recommend to my mentees your website for insights on interviews and your popular analysis on birth dates and 12th standard grades. I wish you could write more on Object oriented programming and Clean code.
Samrat Sen 28 Dec 2020 6:58 am: I have read some of these - The Lean Startup, Stories At Work and quite a few of the Batman comics (Superman - The Red Son is now on Prime). Hadn’t heard of Brandon Sanderson but looks promising. Currently reading Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. Inspiring!
Books in 2023 - S Anand 4 Jan 2024 4:46 pm (pingback): […] read 52 books in 2023 (about the same as in 2022, 2021 and 2020.) Here’s what I read (best books […]
S Anand 8 Dec 2020 3:52 pm: Thanks, Kalpana! I’ve been away for many years now, but am back regularly 😊
Books in 2024 - S Anand 31 Dec 2024 6:31 pm (pingback): […] read 51 new books in 2024 (about the same as in 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020.) But slightly […]